Once again on Windows (11 very up-to-date), trying to update from the app, I noticed the Amazon possibility after the PayPal payment was failing.
Tried it, and this time got a strict clue as to why both are failing.
Please see the attached screenshot, which should be very clear…
Aeon Timeline
Version: 3.4.10
Shell Version: 3.3.12
Opening Mode: about.editor
Operating System: Windows 10
Device Model: 82UG
p.s. your copy-from-about lies – this is Windows 11
So what’s changed in 3.4.10 that is not in 3.3.20?
Or is it even another newer version than that?
Jaran, if you use Tools | Updates, it’ll tell you where you stand
I know where I “stand”, I was asking if there was some new features and if, what…
I can’t find a single world anywhere about a 3.4.10 version and what changes it contain, ergo, I will not pay for an update…
I do not pay for nothing…
and I hoped you was kind enough to tell about any changes… guess I was wrong!
Are you able to email us as support@timeline.app with the email address that you have used for your license, and your account ID? Then we can look into what is happening with the transaction.
Jaran, when I an able to use Tool | Updates, with updatable license, it tells me what’s in the update.
The last time I did that, it was a considerable amount, which was in 3.4.10 quite recently – more than usual it felt by far.
Unfortunately, the Release Notes and What’s New on the website appear to have fallen out of use. Thus I couldn’t suggest to look there.
I suspect you’ll get better results, from staff as well as others trying to help you, by appreciating everyone’s situations these days, foregoing an offended tone.
…I’m in no way staff…
Jess, thank you kindly.
I’ll collect those just now, and do that.
Would have to note, the bad responses didn’t appear to be anything about those being wrong, but you never know, and your exercise will be a best way.
Clive
Hi @narrsd
3.4 versions are all beta versions which haven’t been released as yet. That’s why there’s no info on the website about the features currently being tested.
@Jaran you can always find out what the new developments are by becoming a beta tester. Although I do recall you stating, quite forcefully in a reply to me, that you did not see the point in beta testing an app which wasn’t developing features you or other users wanted. Therefore the only way to see what’s new is to wait for the release of 3.4, I guess.
All the best
Andrew
Thanks,
And yes, I do believe that using time on Beta-testing is a waste of time, when the developers do not listen to their paying customers.
Same goes for paying for updates when there are no major updates of the software, and faults and errors do not get fixed, but instead they remove critical features that multiple people say are essential for their use.
Makes sense, and I’d forgotten this might be beta lineage – thanks, Andrew
Jaran, another update arrived, per the attached image, and I think a page has been added to the blog which details recent additions still in beta, which this link should bring you to.
Thank you for notifying me about this…
Sadly it seems I still can’t export my large Timeline, neither to html nor PDF or any other usable and shareable format…
…But I shall not hijack your post…
Thanks again…
up for a moment (of writing) in the middle of the night here, but may be on your timezone. I had a brief glance at search in this forum, and it gave two ideas:
you could try Save As to a different file name, then open that fresh file and see if exporting functions. Since apparently Tmeline still operates correctly for you, a fresh save might well be minus a problem which could have entered the one you’ve probably long worked on.
other persons have (doesn’t look at all often) experienced problems with a given file, and asked in a bug report for Aeon to see if they can fix it. To do this, it looks like you’d enter a bug, here, asking about sending them a Zip of the offending file.
Good fortune on it, Jaran.
Clive
n.b. changed the suggestion on this a bit, in case you got the earlier version…
Thank you for the suggestion, but this is an artificial limitation in AOEN because they use a library that is outdated regarding PDF printing. They cannot create PDFs in the latest formats above 1.4, and therefore there are limitations on the dimensions of the PDF file. Newer PDF formats have significantly larger dimension scaling and do not have this artificial limitation.
The same largely applies to all other forms of “export” as well.
They have been aware of this problem since version 2, and I notified and asked them for a fix when version 3 was released, they have never done anything with this problem, even though all they need to do is to use another library for the pdf svg export… lots of options out there, even a few open source free variants they can use.
Hmm. I had several ideas for this – here are two which look possible
I just had a look using the current beta – and it appears the extent limit with pdf and images has been solved. In particular, I loaded up the Murder on the Orient Express template, and it produces a huge image: 19902 x 2090 pixels, holding 128 points all clustered in the middle, so clearly many more points could be shown. This was very clear in a pdf, and they’d used jpg settings which made text quite readable even in that form.
or, it looks like you might be able export in CSV, and convert that to a timeline in Excel – or possibly LibreOffice. There were a number of Google returns for Excel, but I didn’t look farther, after finding Timeline seems able, and time is closing in here.
So it looks it maybe worthwhile for you after all to try the beta; or if you prefer still to wait, you could look at the CSV possibilities. [n.b. but later looked a bit farther, and this doesn’t appear a promising approach for creating anything like Timeline’s timelines…]
It does seem Aeon have paid attention well here. I know of at least one other item that’s still hanging out, in spite of what I feel have been Jess’s efforts, but it also looks like they are managing their developer resources rather carefully, choosing first to create the most generally useful features which advance Timeline’s sales, which will mean resources for the rest in future.
p.s. (be sure to read above) I also checked Subway export, as it seemed also mentioned, and it seems fine also, with one exception that they should pick up in this Beta, that the left-hand track labels don’t show white on dark when in a dark display mode. You can just switch to a light mode for export at present, and all looks fine, nicely colorful.
Printing is another possibility, and works nicely, this time with the ability to use a combination of multi-page and scaling to get output that can be nice.
I did wrote 50k x 50k pixel dimension…
All of my timelines is way over 50000 x 50000 when precision is 1 day (needed for my historical research).
Even my Subway graphs Extend that if I add all data needed to find cross-paths for objects and events…
Just take a look at the version of the PDF, if it is 1.3 or 1.4, the limitation is still there, if the PDF version is 1.6 or newer…
The older PDF versions have this artificial limitation in dimension, and there is currently no way around it. I have even sent them several tips about open source SVG libraries they can use to create SVG files instead of PDFs, since both are built with vector graphics. But no, no response to this, they blame the library they use, we see the same with the web export.
I believe there is a single simple reason for this, and that is because they want to squeeze as much money as possible out of the web app they are supposedly developing.
The “timelines” you get in Excel is just a subset of what you can create in AEON, at the moment, AEON is a locked in system, just like the MS Office suite and many other software was in the early 80’s and 90’s.
I don’t pay money for having to create my timelines all over again in a software that is not ment for creating timelines…
If I want a simple timeline software, I can use The Timeline Project, Open Source and free for ever… that was not the reason why I bought AOEN Timeline 2 and upgraded to ver. 3.
Try to take the “292 point” project, set days as precision, and try to export it
Ok, you’re right, PDF version is 4.0, 1.3, and there are limits to the pixel dimensions.
And the 292 point timeline is over 5000 years, so daily isn’t really a possibility.
I keep wondering, though, about a couple of things, of practical mind about this:
what could you hope to use such a huge PDF for, if you had the resolution? Isn’t Aeon itself much better to work with, since you have all the scaling and scrolling abilities like a video editor, and they work well?
the grouping abilities would allow you to break down timezone extents of interest, and print these by group. I tried this, and the printed timeline is bounded properly just to include the items of the group.
I mention printing, because only printing includes the time scale; it seems export does not, have you noticed?
either output has pixel limitations, which occur earlier than first-stated resolution, and fit with what would be considered normal printing. These look to me to be boundaries of internal bitmaps Aeon uses to prepare the images, so it would not be only a change of PDF library to gain these huge resolutions you’re seeking.
Jaran, this is as far as I can make time to take this. I suspect the points about how you imagine to use such huge resolution might be well to think about, and then how you could break down the problem to more usable dimensions, maybe along the lines suggested.
There’s no doubt a newer library might be indicated, and be a good idea anyway, to assure keeping up with PDF abilities. But using it to extend resolution as you seem to propose would likely need revision also of the internal imaging arrangements – and then persons involved would have to ask, how many could use such abilities, and indeed, could they accomplish what you first imagine?
You see I’m leaning towards re-imagining – this is the creative step so often needed, in any project we take on, and often not only once. It’s the discovery, in action…
Best on this, and hope you will find a good way,
Clive
